I recently noticed that when I think back on some of my fondest Everquest memories, most of them have to do with classic content, or rather up to Luclin... perhaps PoP (expansions). I noticed that I really don't care as much for these new zones, sure some are really neat and I do like a few but I miss that old world feeling. I know games have to change and move forward, which is fine, I can still miss my old favorite zones though. I do like a lot of new mechanics like mercs and such but I just don't always care for the new zones and progression, maybe it is the style, like the Gates of Discord- Yuck. Sometimes old zones revamped don't always turn out well, I don't mind the EC/WC (East/West Commonlands) revamp but the one to Freeport drives me nuts. I love those old graphics in the older zones! Stop changing them!!
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| Revamped Freeport- Gah! |
I've been sort of grumbling about Everquest lately to Dire, stating how it is such a strange game to me these days and I don't recognize the look and feel of new zones. I play often enough, it isn't like I'm a stranger, about two to three times a week I log in. I suppose I sometimes miss the old places I loved so much. He thought we should revisit some nostalgic content, some of the best stuff in its' time-
Lost Dungeons of Norrath.
Ah, LDoN was such fun! 'Dynamic' instances for you and your group. Different objectives such as collection, rescue, and kill missions. I absolutely loved these. So, we figured we'd try a few out and it was fun going back to these old haunts. Of course we saw nobody on our travels to the LDoN camps, which is sad.
The thing with LDON adventures, or missions, is that you obtain them at a camp, there are several; South Ro, Nedaria's Landing, Commonlands, Everfrost, and Butcherblock.
Then you run to the instance, which can sometimes be a zone or two away. Once in the zone where the entrance is, a blue line pops up on your compass, it was a huge help back in the day! You also have to do a short quest to obtain your adventurers stone (once), which gains power as you do these missions as well as being required to join these missions. So we went and grabbed those first.
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| Southern Desert of Ro (South Ro) revamp. |
In these missions even hard mode doesn't net the best xp, but it's fun, a change of pace and that is what mattered the most to me. Hard modes are not really, well, hard, they net more points though. You can use the points to buy stuff from the LDoN merchants, which is now mostly obsolete, sadly. LDoN instances require three people as a minimum to enter but we could use a merc to obtain the adventure quest and then put her away so we could just duo them with the monk and rogue. The mobs, even on hard mode, were easy enough that I could tank without heals, using only mend when it refreshed.
It was a far cry from back in the day, where you needed crowd control, team work and thought in these dungeons, but we still enjoyed ourselves and did several adventures. We plowed through them and wandered around just having a good time. Sometimes it isn't all about getting massive experience, it's about the journey and just having a good time. I was glad Dire indulged me and wanted to do something like this. Instead of letting me sit and whine about not knowing anywhere fun to go ;)
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| Butcherblock LDoN adventure camp. |
I'd love it, if one day, perhaps, they added a (same server) queue for these. All you really need is bodies but then again there are always the missions in Everquest which shroud you- but it just isn't the
same. The days of LDoN were fun and alive feeling, I'm glad I had the chance to experience them when they were in full swing and I'm also so glad they are there to visit still. These are still great places to adventure with a few or few, even mercs!
We actually ended the evening by heading to the Temple or Solusek Ro, which isn't as old. It was fun and we slaughtered stuff. I have good memories in those zones too, memories of progression, even if I'm not such of a progressive person these days, lol.
So, leaving you, my dear reader, with some pictures of our adventures. Hope you enjoy them!
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| A LDoN entrance in Lesser Faydark. |
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| Spooky! |
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| Moving along through cobweb covered corridors, fun! |
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| Finished the first! |
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| Adventure in SRO. |
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| Clearing through the instance. |
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| At least good ol' Everfrost is still the same! |
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| Everfrost LDoN camp. (Warming myself in the fire, it's cold out there!) |
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| Everfrost LDoN |
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| RAWR! |
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| Spiders everywhere! |
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| Damn it, OT Hammer- Proc (Yes, I still use this on occasion for travel, lol)!! |
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Choo-choo! Train to the zone... Ah,the memories.
"You've ruined your own lands, you'll not ruin mine!"
They hate me in the Over There- Running to the (zone) PoK book. |
LDoN at its height was one of my favorite times in EQ. Even though I'd been playing for years before that and had done a fair amount of grouping, LDoN was where I really learned my group skills. It was also where I met many people who would become my EQ friends for the next couple of years.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I'm most looking forward to about EQ going F2P is being able to use my Silver EQ2 accounts to make characters in EQ and multibox LDoN. It's a shame the Progression servers aren't going F2P because LDoN is just about to land there - in fact it's overdue. I might even level up my necro there and see if anyone's doing the low-end ones.
On the revamping of zones, some are good some are terrible. Freeport is diabolical. So was the original Nektulos Forest until they had another go at it. I like the Commonlands and Ro revamps now I'm used to them. I doubt they will ever get round to the Karanas or Faydwer, thankfully. On balance I would prefer them left as they were, even when the revamps are well done.
Those were some fun days! I had played for awhile by then but it was such a nice change having an instance to ourselves, instead of fighting over camps, hehe.
ReplyDeleteAye, I agree, some of the revamps are quite nice, misty thicket isn't too bad but I'd prefer if they were just left alone. I lubs those old zones just as they was ;)
I can only imagine how much time I spent doing LDoN. I wish more developers would have seen what a treasure this system was. This was how instancing should have been done. I often wonder whether WoW would have kept me longer, had this been the way all instancing was handled. I may not have been bothered so much by PvP.
ReplyDeleteIt really was a lot of fun, still is even with a small group. Most nights lately we've just been doing LDoN missions. I agree, I wish more MMO games had picked up on this idea. Beats the heck out of running heroics.
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